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Delaware lawmakers push bill to let you vote by mail in 2020 elections

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Delaware lawmakers are working to hasten a proposed law that would allow voters to cast their ballots by mail in the 2020 elections.

The move comes as the upcoming elections are raising increased concern for First State voters, who don't have many options besides showing up to the polls in person if they want to cast their vote.

The vote-by-mail idea has been in the works for several months, but the bill to make it happen wasn't set to go into effect until 2022. The bill, House Bill 175 by Rep. Gerald Brady, was introduced last spring and has yet to pass the General Assembly.

House Democrats announced Friday that one of their own is trying to amend the bill to make it go into effect immediately should Gov. John Carney sign it into law.

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Delaware lawmakers are working to hasten a proposed law that would allow voters to cast their ballots by mail in the 2020 elections.(Photo: Jennifer Corbett, The News Journal)

The amendment by Rep. David Bentz, D-Christiana, would hasten the enactment. Brady supports the amendment and has signed onto it.

The bill would allow Delawareans to vote by mailing their ballots or dropping them off at a polling place or county election drop box on Election Day. Ballots would be processed and scanned ahead of the election date, but would not be tabulated before then.

It's unclear if and when state lawmakers would be able to pass the bill or its amendment. The General Assembly has postponed the 2020 lawmaking session indefinitely to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Legislative Hall, where hundreds of people can gather on a given day.

House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, who controls the House's agenda, is not now planning to call lawmakers back in to vote on the vote-by-mail measure, according to a Friday afternoon news release about the bill.

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Legislative Hall is closed while the 2020 legislative session is postponed indefinitely due to the spread of coronavirus.(Photo: Jenna Miller/Delaware News Journal)

The effort to hasten the vote-by-mail bill is the latest move by Delaware officials to protect voters from the virus at the polls.

On Tuesday, following suit with neighboring states, Carney pushed Delaware's April 28 presidential primary to June 2. The state is also allowing social distancing due to the virus to be a valid reason to vote absentee.

Before Carney postponed the election, Elections Commissioner Anthony Albence said his department plans to train its poll workers to thoroughly clean voting machines and electronic poll books to help prevent the risk of spreading the disease for voters who do show up in person.

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Governor John Carney gives an update on the coronavirus situation in Delaware Wednesday during a press conference outside the Carvel State Building in Wilmington. (Photo: Jerry Habraken, Delaware News Journal)

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., is helping push a bill through Congress to expand early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and vote-by-mail across the country so that voters in states like Delaware won't have to vote in person.